[January 20, 2014]WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The head of
the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee objected on Sunday to President
Barack Obama's proposal for the government to give up control of the
storage of the telephone records of millions of Americans it holds as
part of its counterterrorism efforts.
Obama on Friday announced an overhaul of U.S. surveillance
activities following criticism sparked by the disclosure of leaked
documents exposing the wide reach of National Security Agency spy
efforts.
He proposed an overhaul of the government's handling of bulk
telephone "metadata" — lists of million of phone calls made by
Americans that show which numbers were called and when.
Obama said the government will not hold the bulk telephone records.
A presidential advisory panel had recommended that the data be
controlled by a third party such as telephone companies, but Obama
did not propose who should store the phone information in the
future.
Signaling congressional opposition to the change, Democratic Senator
Dianne Feinstein, who heads the intelligence panel, criticized the
idea of moving the data out of government control.
"I think that's a very difficult thing because the whole purpose of
this program is to provide instantaneous information to be able to
disrupt any plot that may be taking place," Feinstein told the NBC
program "Meet the Press."
"I think a lot of the privacy people (advocates) perhaps don't
understand that we still occupy the role of the 'Great Satan,' new
bombs are being devised, new terrorists are emerging, new groups — actually, a new level of viciousness. And I think we need to be
prepared," she added.
Obama asked Attorney General Eric Holder and the intelligence
community to report back to him by March 28 on how to preserve the
necessary capabilities of the program without the government holding
the metadata.
The usefulness of keeping the metadata records was questioned by a
presidential review panel, which found that while the program had
produced some leads for counterterrorism investigators, such data
had not been decisive in a single case.
Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House of
Representatives Intelligence Committee, faulted Obama for creating
uncertainty surrounding the program.
"Just in my conversations over the weekend with intelligence
officials, this new level of uncertainty is already having a bit of
an impact on our ability to protect Americans by finding terrorists
who are trying to reach into the United States," Rogers told CNN's
"State of the Union."
Democratic Senator Mark Udall, a member of the intelligence panel,
urged an end to the collection of metadata.
"We can be effective in protecting our country but we don't need to
collect every single phone record of every single American on every
single day," he told the CBS program "Face the Nation."
Feinstein expressed doubt that a proposal to end the collection of
such data could pass in Congress, adding: "The president has very
clearly said that he wants to keep the capability."
(Reporting by Will Dunham; editing by Jim Loney and Meredith
Mazzilli)
